


Confessions and Stolen Tea

by NoiseyLobster



Category: RWBY
Genre: F/F, Family, Hurt/Comfort, Pre-Relationship, Qrow Branwen Needs a Hug, Weiss Schnee Needs a Hug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-16
Updated: 2020-10-16
Packaged: 2021-03-09 03:28:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,163
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27047992
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NoiseyLobster/pseuds/NoiseyLobster
Summary: “Do you know why I stopped drinking Weiss?”Just like that a decade and a half of manners lessons were forgotten in an instant.
Relationships: Ruby Rose/Weiss Schnee
Comments: 3
Kudos: 152





	Confessions and Stolen Tea

**Author's Note:**

> RWBY is the sole property of Monty Oum and Rooster Teeth. I don't own any of this.

“She’s a good kid, isn’t she?”

Weiss’ eyes snapped away from the observation deck window, following the trails of the sound back to the lanky frame of Ruby’s uncle slumped against the half-open door behind her. She’d never heard him enter the room. 

Now that he had, Weiss’ options for plausibly excusing her current behavior were...limited. She could write off the rosy tint to her cheeks on the steam wafting off the lavender tea she’d stolen from Blake’s stash (which was never hidden half as well as the taller girl thought). The far-away haze in her eyes which, while never aware of at the time, she knew had surely been there thanks to no small amount of past teasing from Yang, could be chalked up to stress, exhaustion, grief, or any combination of the three. They’d certainly been through enough to warrant a bit of a brooding, even if the direction of Weiss' thoughts hadn’t been anywhere near so dark. 

The amused smile on Qrow’s face told her not to bother. Told her he knew exactly where her gaze had been trained. 

“Nice facility they got here in Atlas,” Qrow hummed, his glance shifting lazily around the informal break room that Atlas Academy students frequented between classes. Perched just above one of the larger training facilities, it was the perfect vantage point to watch a fight or to recover after one of your own. Today however, with no classes in session, the facility was deserted.

Mostly.

“This a bit more your style than back at Argus I take it?”

Weiss didn’t know how to answer that question. The Cotta-Arc’s had a lovely home and the degree to which they’d opened it up to Weiss and all the rest of them was still something she was trying to digest. Weiss couldn’t help but draw unflattering comparisons with the type of “hospitality” the Schnee family might have offered themselves, despite having the resources to buy and sell Saphron’s home a dozen times over before Weiss had so much as finished her tea. 

Ruby had loved it there. She’d mentioned as much to Weiss one night when the two of them were up long after the rest had gone to bed. How much it reminded her of Patch. 

It was hard sometimes for Weiss to understand the reverent tone Ruby spoke of her childhood home with. Memories of eating pancakes with Yang and her father, of fishing and exploring in the woods, of building Crescent Rose and training with Qrow. Of her mother. 

Ruby didn’t speak of Summer often, but there was nothing that could snap Weiss’ attention to her partner faster than mention of the elder Rose. Summer’s memory was everything to Ruby. Weiss never knew exactly what to say on the rare moments Ruby would bring her up. Her own relationship with her parents was so strained and contentious that talking with Ruby about her mother sometimes felt like trying to speak another language on the fly. But Summer was too important to Ruby for Weiss not to at least try. 

Ruby would do the same for her after all.

The silver-eyed dolt was practically incapable of thinking of herself before someone else. That had been so hard for Weiss to get used to at first, just how much Ruby cared. She was far too used to the frigid halls of the Schnee Estate, of dinner parties with as many agendas as guests, of political maneuvering and backstabbing, both between families and within them. Especially within them. 

Meeting Ruby after a lifetime in Atlas had been like coming up for air for the first time. The experience had been so surreal that it had taken months before Weiss could even admit to herself that her partner’s outlook on her friends and family was genuine. That it wasn’t just another game, another strategy.

Finally accepting that had left Weiss feeling paralzed, staring up at the bunk above her with tears in her eyes long after the rest of RWBY had fallen asleep and the halls of Beacon were quiet. 

Beacon hurt so much. 

It had taken ages before Weiss could even bring herself to think back to those days without feeling her stomach churn with bile. But Ruby needed Beacon. Needed to remember those happier days, when the world was simpler, lighter and so much more crowded with people she could never stop loving, even now. They helped keep her going, gave her something to fight for, to push through everything for. 

As much as Weiss liked to tell herself she only let herself reminisce in order to be there for her partner, the quiet truth was that she needed the memories just as much.

Weiss couldn’t remember being happy before Beacon. So many things started there. 

Especially Ruby. 

Perhaps that was also part of why Ruby had enjoyed her time at Saphron’s so much. Late nights spent staying up late with their teammates and JNR in pajamas watching a movie, little moments where they could forget the war, Salem, and the relics practically begged for comparisons to Beacon. 

Even if the empty spot at the table sometimes made those comparisons more than Weiss could stomach. 

But there was good too. After weeks on the road, settling into a warm bed and drifting off to sleep without having to keep Myrtenaster ever within an arm’s reach was a welcome respite in more ways than one. Weiss didn’t know how much she needed that until it was back, however briefly. 

Not that everything in Atlas was terrible. Qrow wasn’t wrong that the facilities here were unlike anything else in the world. The technology Atlas afforded to huntsmen put anything Beacon or Haven offered to shame in an instant. 

The training room below her for example. Ruby had taken to it immediately, loving the equipment and the endless simulation options she could practice with. She’d spent hours here, running through drill after drill with Crescent Rose in the cool, air-conditioned space until her skin practically hummed with energy and every muscle coiled with an expert precision. 

Like today. 

Weiss was terribly afraid that Qrow knew exactly how wonderful a view of the training facility the observation deck in this room offered.

The sound of a chair's leg scraping against polished tile ripped away any hope Weiss had of Qrow taking her silence as the request it was. Weiss braced herself for the conversation that was sure to come. 

“Do you know why I stopped drinking Weiss?”

Just like that a decade and a half of manners lessons were forgotten in an instant. 

It wasn’t that Weiss was unaware of Qrow’s problems with alcoholism. Even if Ruby’s concern for her Uncle’s health hadn’t been as plain as day to see, experiences with her own mother had made Weiss acutely sensitive to that particular strain of trauma. 

Qrow wanting to open up was natural, if a bit out of character for the reclusive older man. But to her? Weiss had maybe spoken _maybe_ a handful of words to the huntsman one-on-one since meeting him. She could never have imagined he’d choose to take the conversation in that direction with her of all people.

Qrow chuckled, obviously amused by her slack-jawed expression. 

“I’ll take that as a no I guess.”

“I-” Weiss struggled desperately, searching for anything even moderately appropriate to say in response to such a question. Thankfully Qrow didn’t seem all that interested in waiting for a response. 

“It amazes me sometimes. How much of Summer I see in her.”

Qrow’s nod to the window brought the color roaring back to Weiss’ cheeks. So he had noticed. 

“Honestly I kinda owe you kids,” Qrow went on, gaze now trained on his clasped hands on the table, his voice dropping low enough that Weiss wasn’t sure if he was talking to her or himself now. “Summer would never have forgiven me if I’d have let anything happen to you all back there.” 

“Qrow-” Weiss started, but now that he’d begun Qrow didn’t seem to need a conversation partner. 

“Drunk off my ass. Again.” He looked up finally meeting her eyes and Weiss swallowed uncomfortably at the emotion swirling behind them. “Shoulda been me going down into that cellar.”

Oh. Oh no.

Of all the subjects Weiss never wanted to speak of again, the Farm occupied a particularly prominent place. She could already feel the weight of the Apathy crashing down around her, see Ruby crawling, hands and knees dragging over the rough dirt of the old cellar, desperate to get to Blake in time. Desperate not to be too late.

_Jaune’s sobs echoed, begging them to save Pyrrha._

Just how many times had Ruby clung to her late at night, hands shaking with the memories of those disgusting creatures and all the other painful things they’d dredged up from the dark. How many times had she done the same to Ruby? 

That hopelessness, the crushing, painful, exhausting weight of it all. Weiss never wanted to feel like that ever again, never wanted to be what those Things had brought out of her. She could be stronger than that. She had to be stronger than that.

_“What are we even doing out here Ruby?”_

A warm cup being pressed into her hands was a welcome shock back to reality. Weiss glanced down at the fresh mug of tea and then across the table at its equally steaming counterpart in Qrow’s hands as he settled back at the table.

When had he-?

“Sorry kid. Rough subject, I get it.” 

Weiss shook her head, taking a long sip of the warm liquid, welcoming the momentary escape from the embarrassment of having needed the pull back to Remnant. 

“Blake will be mad if she finds out you’re stealing her tea you know.”

Qrow smiled at that, the expression looking almost sad on his weathered face. “Something tells me I’ll survive.” 

They sat in silence for a while, Qrow seeming content to sip his tea quietly for the moment, Weiss still not knowing remotely what to say to her partner’s uncle.

“You should tell her. It’d make her day.” 

Weiss glanced up from her mug in confusion, only to find Qrow staring out the observation deck window where Weiss knew, just as well as she knew her own name, that Ruby was still practicing. 

Weiss could have rivaled Ruby’s cloak for the shade of red she was turning.

“I don’t know what you’re implying, but-” 

“I’m glad you kids were able to find each other again,” Qrow continued, cutting her off as if completely uninterested in the reply. It seemed she was destined not to finish a sentence today. 

“It doesn't always work out like that you know.”

Weiss felt her throat run dry. Please God could they talk about anything else.

“You don’t understand.”

“Don’t I?” Qrow asked, that sad smile back on his face. 

“My father - a Schnee can’t be - he would never-” Weiss stuttered, her face burning with the implications of every syllable. “You could never understand what it’s like. A Schnee...people expect things. My family expects things.”

Qrow paused before replying, just long enough to take a sip of tea and collect his thoughts. Or to give Weiss a chance to do so.

“I never wanted to be a bandit.”

Oh. “But-”

“Or a lot of the other things I turned out to be.” Another pause, another sip of tea. This time Weiss was certain the lull was for Qrow. “Sucks sometimes to be a Branwen’s kid.” 

Weiss watched the steam dance from the lip of his cup, rising in wisps where they pooled under his chin. Eye contact seemed almost too personal after that admission. Like a look could crack you open, carve you down the center, leaving whatever was hidden inside exposed to the open air.

Weiss did a stupid thing then. A stupid, foolish, regrettable thing that practically screamed of too much time with Ruby. The table was small, made for reviews of battle plans and training simulations, just an arm’s length away. Qrow’s hand shook as she carefully grabbed it in her own and squeezed.

“Summer was the first person I ever told you know.”

Weiss stared at him, afraid to speak lest years of carefully constructed walls come crashing down with a word. 

Qrow didn’t give her a chance. The elder huntsman drained the last of his tea and stood, letting Weiss’ hand fall to the table with a quiet thunk. 

“Took me a long time to realize there’s more to life than being a Branwen. Still learning that.” 

Qrow paused in the doorway, looking back at her, that strange sad smile returning for a last time.

“I mean it though. You’re good for her Weiss. It’d make her day.”

He left then, leaving Weiss sitting alone in the quiet room, her tea long gone cold, with only the rhythmic sound of Crescent Rose cutting through the air to keep her thoughts company.


End file.
